


lightening rod

by salazarastark



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 02:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20038315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salazarastark/pseuds/salazarastark
Summary: Wally makes a little trip in of time.





	lightening rod

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowshus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/gifts).

> Thank you so much to ayzenigma for the beta work!

It happens for the most humiliating reason. Wally trips. He literally trips while he’s running in the  Speed Force and ends up in a time and a place that he doesn’t mean to enter, which based on the newspaper he found, cliche as it is, he is five years, two months, three weeks, and four days in the future.

And since he doesn’t know how tripping got him here in the future, he’s stuck until he finds his future self and figures out a way to get back home.

“Man, I looked  _ really _ confused.  Also, I thought I got here two hours ago? Guess I'm more like Uncle Barry than I thought. ”

Wally turns with a start, to find his own smirking face.

Okay, who was going to tell him that his voice was that high?

He stares at himself. He doesn’t think he’s changed much over five years, except for some new scars. But there’s also an ease about him he doesn’t think he has . . . today? Five years ago? Time travel is confusing and he never knows the right way to phrase things. His eyes still skate over his future self, and his gaze narrows onto the ring on his older self’s hand. All he, the other he, not actual he, does is raise an eyebrow and his hand and wiggles them both.

“Wait until you meet him,” Future Wally says, lips pulled into a smirk.

Wally’s mind instantly starts to conjure a man, tall with broad shoulders and blue eyes, someone who looks far too much like someone he already knows, but he pushes it aside. There’s no way that  _ he _ would ever want him.

“I wouldn’t be too sure.” Future Wally is still smirking and the next thing Wally, present Wally, feels is strong arms encircling him, a chin settling on his shoulder, and shaggy black hair tickling his cheek. He squeaks, and instantly hates himself for doing that. Future Wally groans.

“Why the hell did you never tell me I sound like  _ that _ ?”

“Because it’s adorable,” a deep rumble says next to his ear. A deep rumble that sounds a lot like. . . . Dick is grinning at him when Wally turns his head slightly to look at his best friend and the man he’s had a crush on for years. The man who is wearing a wedding ring that looks a lot like Future Wally’s. He looks between the two of them about a hundred times before Dick softly touches his face, and pulls him to look Wally straight in the eyes. “Babe, you okay?”

Dick is calling him babe. This is an emergency, Dick is calling him babe. His mouth is dry and he can’t stop staring into Dick’s sky blue eyes.

“How?” he manages to get out. “Why would you ever want to be with  _ me _ ?”

Dick’s eyes get really sad and he sighs deeply. “Oh babe, I forget what your self-esteem was like.”

“It was really bad,” Future Wally says. “You took care of that though.”

Dick shakes his head, still staring at the present Wally. “Nah. You did that. I was just a cheerleader. And to answer  _ your _ question,” as he boops Wally’s nose, “I want to be with you because you are brilliantly smart, totally hilarious, incredibly kind, and mind-blowingly gorgeous. I spent years in love with you before I realized that you actually liked me back, and I never made a move because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship and have you stop talking to me.”

Wally cannot imagine a world where that would be the case. Where he would actually turn away Dick Grayson because Dick liked him in more than a friendly way. “That’s crazy,” he mutters.

Dick laughs. “It is! Gotta do me a favor though and actually tell little me that. I was trained by the Bat. Like him, I’m  _ crap _ at telling when someone actually likes me.”

“We’re married,” he says, gaze flicking down to the ring on Dick’s finger. “How’d that happen?”

Dick’s pouting and it’s adorable. It’s also his husband’s pout and that’s the weirdest thing ever. “You scared me. Thought you were  _ dead _ . You weren’t, of course, but I spent the worst five minutes of my life thinking that you were dead and that I never got the chance to tell you how much I love you. Never got to  _ show _ you. So as soon as I knew you were okay, I was down on one knee and spilling my heart out.” He looks towards Future Wally, who’s giving Dick the sweetest smile and Wally’s hear aches at the fact that he’s going to be allowed to love Dick that much. He doesn’t know how he got that lucky, but somehow he did.

“You proposed?”

“Yeah. Do me a favor and let me still do it? Unless I’m taking forever, but it was-”

“Don’t  _ tell _ me,” Future Wally cuts in. “Let me have something here.”

"And it isn't it bad for the time stream for me to know everything?" Wally cuts in, hysteria creeping into his tone.

“Gothca,” Dick says. His arms have been around Present Wally throughout this entire discussion, but he lets go of him now, as much as he hates it, and moves toward Future Wally, his  _ actual _ husband. “You deserve as much mystery and romance in your life as I can give you.” He turns toward Present Wally, (though as he thinks about it, isn’t he really Past Wally?) and winks. “And I can give you a  _ lot _ .”

Future Wally laughs and wraps his arms around Dick, pulls him close and leans his head against his chest. “He’s not lying. You’ll honestly get sick of it at points.”

Dick fake gasps in offense. “How  _ dare _ you lie to yourself? You love every single romantic gesture.”

“They always make me laugh, that’s for sure.”

“You’re breaking my heart. You’re really breaking my heart. You know what, I’m going to leave you for a younger man.  _ Yourself _ .”

“He’ll get old too, you know.”

“Then I’ll just always get a younger Wally, until I’m ninety years old and you’re my eighteen year old boy-toy.”

His future self is cracking up, and Dick is giggling as well. They look so blissfully happy and Wally wants to cry because he never thought he could have that. His dad certainly made sure he never felt worthy of having that.

He has a million questions burning on the tip of his tongue, but he forces them all down. He doesn’t actually want to know. He wants what Dick is promising him, romance and mystery and the happiest fucking life.

“How’d you get back?” he manages to get out. 

Future Wally looks at him, and then puts his palm over Dick’s heart. “Lightning rod.”

And Wally understands. He takes one last look at himself and his husband until God knows when, closes his eyes, and begins to  _ run _ .

He runs as fast as he can, following Dick’s laughter and the thread of blue that he can see in the  Speed Force , the one that leads him back to Dick. He exits the  Speed Force in Dick’s living room, Dick sitting on the couch in his boxers and eating a slice of pizza while watching _ The Real Housewives of Gotham _ .

“Jesus  _ Christ _ ,” he shouts. “Wally, what the fuck are you thinking?”

“Do you have a crush on me?” he blurts out. 

Dick chokes on empty air, looks at him with wide eyes and takes a deep breath. “I’m  _ sorry _ ?”

Wally prays that he didn’t accidentally enter into an alternate universe and that in this universe, Dick has never thought of him as a romantic partner. But Dick is blushing now and looking down at the ground, and Wally knows that it wasn’t an alternate universe. It was the future.  _ His _ future.

He walks up to Dick and pulls Dick’s mouth closer to his, kisses him gently so Dick can easily move away.

He doesn’t. Dick circles his arms around Wally’s waist and pulls him closer to him, and Wally moves his hands into Dick’s hair, carding his fingers through the silky, black threads. Dick is an  _ incredible _ kisser, soft and demanding in equal terms. They stumble back to the couch, and Wally ends up on his back with Dick on top of him.

“What brought this on?” he asks in between kisses as they stop to grab breathes.

“Ended up in the future,” Wally responds. “I saw me and you. We were married.”

Dick stills on top of him. “What?” he says with a strangled voice, and for a moment Wally thinks that Dick is filled with disgust at the idea, but then he turns to look at Dick and he sees the wonder in his eyes.

“We’re married? How?”

“Apparently, I scared you when you thought I was dead and you proposed,” Wally laughs. “Don’t know  _ when _ that was though. You didn’t say. Wanted me to have some mystery and romance in my life. But Dick . . . I guess, in five years we’ll be  _ married _ .”

Dick’s eyes are shining bright, just like he thinks his own are. “Fuck, babe,” Dick says, and Wally relishes in the nickname. “Marriage. Us. Oh, fuck, if you went back ten years, you probably would have seen  _ kids _ .”

Children. Him and Dick having  _ children _ . It’s incredible to think about.

And it’s amazing to know it’s going to happen.

_ Five years later. . . . _

“I forgot how young you looked,” Dick says, stretching out on the couch that they had first kissed. “I mean, it was only five years, but it was also  _ five _ years.”

Wally lays down on top of Dick, who wraps him up in his arms. “I remember five years taking you from shrimp to . . . not-shrimp.”

Dick snorts. “Love your way with words, babe.” He nuzzles his face into Wally’s hair. “What do you think came first?”

Wally frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Dick stretches out the word, and Wally can tell he’s about to go into Bat-mode and try to figure out something complicated. “You went into the future and met future you and me, which enabled you to confess that you’re in love with me which made me confess that I’m in love with and enabled to us to be somewhere today to meet past you and to get him to admit that he’s in love with past me. What came first? Was it the chicken or the egg? It seems to be a closed time loop, but-”

Wally maneuvers his face to capture Dick’s lips with his own, kissing him deeply for a moment before pulling back. “Babe, you’re making my head hurt. This is fascinating and all, but I’ve been thinking about this for the past five years and I can tell you what the answer is.”

“What?”

“We’re probably never going to know. But just kiss me and be glad I tripped and the  Speed Force wanted us to be together.”

Dick gives his goofiest smile, the one Wally loves so much. “Yes, sir.”


End file.
